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Cisco Thursday disclosed plans to acquire Composite Software, a San Mateo- Calif. based data virtualization software and services company. The acquisition, according to some VARs, is a move toward closing Cisco's software gap and getting one step closer to its ambitious vision of a broader Cisco future.

"This is exactly what I hoped to see from Cisco," said Phil Mogavero, vice president and regional CTO of PCM Inc., an El Segundo, Calif.-based solution provider.

Mogavero was one of over 2,000 partners present at Cisco's Partner Summit Conference in Boston earlier this month where Cisco executives walked partners step-by-step through the vision for Cisco and its ecosystem's future. A lot of Cisco's focus revolved around the "Internet of Everything" and a push toward cloud computing, according to Mogavero.

"To me, the missing piece from Cisco's story was software and acquisitions to make Cisco more relevant in the software space," said Mogavero. "My guess is [this acquisition] is something they had targeted to be able to take data and centralize it."

"It's not surprising," said Dave Casey, principal of Westron Communications, a Frisco, Texas-based solution provider. "They haven't played too much in the business intelligence space, so I think that's probably a good move for them."

Cisco executives have been outspoken about keeping up with where technology is headed.

"Big data and cloud are drastically changing today's IT landscape," Cisco said in a statement. "The proliferation of traditional and new data sources plus the movement of data to the cloud complicates the ability to access all data assets. This creates the need to complement traditional data warehousing with an agile business solution that provides a real-time, consolidated logical view of data."

Composite Software offers a product that collects various types of data from across the network and compiles the data in one, organized space. The point of the technology, according to Cisco's statement, is to allow customers to view the most up-to-the-minute data, allowing business executives to make the most informed decision possible.

According to Robyn Jenkins Blum, a Cisco spokesperson, the deal will close in first quarter of fiscal year 2014, which begins in August.

Composite Software did not respond to requests for comment as of press time.